THE END OF THE CRESCENT by Ian Campbell

Author:Ian Campbell [Campbell, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2022-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Mary-Anne Gets Out

N

o-one met her at the gates but when Mary-Anne was released early from Peterhead Prison on Wednesday 18th June 1924, she felt that after six months short of a two-year sentence, she had paid her debt to society. Her prison term had been cut short to coincide with the release of her daughter from the care of the Nuns in Aberdeen. This was made possible in response to a letter from Jessie, to the Reverend Milne and Effie, his good lady wife. They had spoken up for Mary-Anne and time off for good behaviour was the happy result.

“Oh, how glad I am to be free again,” she said aloud but at the same time, she was full of trepidation in the knowledge that her next scheduled trip to Aberdeen the following week, was to meet Annie on her release from Nazareth House.

Before she left Peterhead she was handed a jute sackcloth shoulder bag containing all her possessions on entry, all that time ago - a purse containing three shillings and fourpence. In addition, she had been given two one-way, third class train travel warrants, one from Peterhead to Union Square Station in Aberdeen and one from there to Dundee. She also had her earnings of two pounds eighteen shillings and ten pence for the work she carried out in the rope making shop in prison. ‘I’ve got over three pounds to spend’ she thought to herself as she made her way to the Peterhead train station. Passing the shops on the way, Mary-Anne was torn between buying a shawl to keep the cold out or a bottle of red wine to do the same but with a bit of a reward for her at the same time.

She opted for the wine. It was getting a bit chilly when the train came along and she got inside and huddled down by the back window, not wanting to look at or talk to anyone save the conductor when he came for the travel warrant. When he had been and gone, she opened the bottle and commenced warming up by drinking it.

Mary-Anne’s thoughts ran wild on the journey and she quickly consumed the whole bottle on the way into Aberdeen. She secreted the empty wine bottle down the back of the seat, jamming it between the wall and the leg of the seat to stop it from rattling. Walking from the train, she took the first exit from the station and walked around until she found what she was looking for. She stopped at the licensed grocer, just outside the station, went in, and bought another bottle. This time, it was ‘Old Tom Gin’ and she slipped it into her prison bag on the way to the next platform inside the station, where the Dundee train was waiting.

As the train moved out of Aberdeen station, she recalled the journey up to Nazareth House with Jessie on the day she was arrested on a train and thought long and hard about the difference in her own thought processes since then.

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